Essay accompanying the exhibition Graphic Design in the White Cube during the 22nd International Biennale of Graphic Design Brno 2006. Nineteen designers and collectives were commissioned to design posters for the design exhibition in which they were to participate. Instead of bringing work from the outside to the gallery, the work is made for the gallery. Instead of recreating the context for the exhibition, gallery conditions are the context for the work.

The point-form story of a German dentist named Hans Josef Sachs and the magazine Das Plakat he founded on his love for posters. Responsible for the promulgation of early German advertising art abroad, his vast collection was confiscated by Goebbels for the Nazis’ collections and Sachs narrowly escaped the Holocaust. Steven Heller looks at the rise and fall of this significant early design periodical.